


Retribution

by SnowyK



Series: Sapphic September 2018 [2]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Mutants, F/F, Gen, Mutants au, uzushi0, uzushi0 fest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-01
Updated: 2018-10-01
Packaged: 2019-07-23 06:44:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,210
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16153754
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SnowyK/pseuds/SnowyK
Summary: Hana's night out with Tsunade goes well until she wakes alone and locked in a strange room. Teamwork is the obvious solution, but her only aids are a few disgruntled ghosts, a boy who can walk through walls, and her trusted dead dogs.





	Retribution

**Author's Note:**

> Written for uzushi0's Sapphic September! Hope you enjoy :) Trigger warning for gore (not too detailed, in my opinion) and violence.

Hana is never going drinking with Tsunade again. She may be the mutant she grew up idolising, gorgeous and stronger than the entire army of soldiers Konoha tried to defeat her with, but she’s a terrible drinking buddy.

Gambling away most of her money and accepting Hana’s offer to pay for her drinks, okay, she can manage that. Being dragged into a drinking competition and doing well until she blacked out, alright, that one lays a little of the blame on her for accepting despite Tsunade’s infamous alcohol tolerance. Waking up in a small room with no windows and a faint smell of rot that makes nausea join the throbbing headache, that one she’s blaming entirely on Tsunade.

Groaning, she covers her eyes with a hand and reaches out with her other senses since her vision is screaming at her to please cease and desist. There’s a chill to the room that only comes with the dead, tempered with rage and a mixture of grudges both days old and ancient. Her mouth twisting into a grimace, she turns her attention to the ghosts lingering beside her. “Haimaru brothers,” she whispers after she’s sure there’s nobody living inside the room. “Fetch an ally.”

One of the dogs gives a soft snort and she feels it part from the other two. The two twins hesitate and argue between themselves. Hana leaves them to it, trying to quell her headache by willpower alone.

It isn’t very successful.

Another of the brothers leaves and the remaining ghost takes up post by her head, clearly intent on watching over her. Hana extends a hand and taps him on the paw, giving him a burst of energy so he can take physical form to protect her, if need be.

 

* * *

 

She isn’t sure how much time has passed when she wakes again, but the headache is gone and she can keep her eyes open for more than a few seconds without wanting to shatter the artificial lights glaring above her so she considers it a win.

Her nose has adjusted to the smell but she can still detect the lingering iron of blood. Rubbing a hand over her nose, she takes in the room – small enough to be a bedroom and not much else, devoid of any furniture but for a bucket in the corner. Two of the Haimaru brothers are sitting beside her with the patience of the dead, frozen yet alert.

Her bladder twinges at her and Hana curses herself for not matching the shots with water and food. When she first joined Tsunade’s rebel group, she craved her creature comforts and put dignity on par with survival. Since then she’s been kidnapped twice, trapped once and imprisoned another two times.

She uses the bucket. The ghosts keep sentry and she trusts them to sense any changes before she will. “Did you find anyone?” she asks when she’s finished. There’s no toilet paper, of course, but she’s not surprised. This is hardly the first time she’s come across those who see mutants as less than human.

The dog who’d left assesses her with dull golden eyes. She maintains the gaze and lets him project his memories into her mind, showing her several rooms like hers with mutants inside. Some of the rooms are empty but for pools of blood, which makes her grimly determined to figure out what to do faster. The memories end and Hana takes stock of the intel – five floors of an abandoned building, almost half with mutants inside. The other rooms are either empty, filled with equipment or humans. Some of them are wearing an emblem she doesn’t recognise, possibly one of the new organised hate groups Orochimaru had warned them about. The humans are all too far for her to possess though, and she glowers at the door.

“On a scale of one to fuck this, how bad of an idea is summoning a demon?” she asks them. The brothers exchange a glance and if they could raise their eyebrows, they would. “Figures,” she mutters, closing her eyes and expanding her senses. She pulses her energy and detects the answering spikes of nearby ghosts, though none move towards her. She lets her energy shine like a beacon for a few seconds and then dims it to a simmer, content to let them answer her in their own time.

The door is locked. Hana had expected it but still, it was better than not testing it at all. “Plan B, boys?”

One of the brothers shakes his head. Hana rolls her eyes but accepts it; Plan B, blending their energies to form one corporeal demon dog, was his least favourite tactic when it was used to break down walls. “Where’s your brother?” she asks. She’d tried to give them individual names, when she’d met them as a child, but they never seemed to understand her when she did.

The dogs turn as one to face a corner of the room but don’t offer any answers. Assuming the third is somewhere in that direction, she heads to one wall where she can sense someone living. She raps hard on the wall with her knuckles and yells out, “Hello?”

There’s no answer. One of the brothers gives a sharp bark. **_The boy is deaf._**

Frustration and her instinctive urge to protect form a knot in her throat. She tries the other wall and jumps when a face _pops through the wall_. “Fuck!”

The boy manages to look both anxious and supremely unimpressed at once. “You’ve been talking to yourself,” he says.

Hana narrows her eyes and lowers her estimation of his age to Kiba’s, around sixteen. “I see ghosts. They’re scouting. You… if you can walk through walls, why are you still here?”

The boy’s eyes flare with instant anger. One of the brothers bristles behind her. “They have my friend. I can’t leave her, she needs an anchor.”

Hana realises there’s another person in the room he’s in, feels her lying close to the wall between them. “A sensor?” The boy’s face abruptly closes off and Hana recognises the protective mask for what it is. She steps back and holds out her hands. “I know one back home. She zones out and can’t come back on her own sometimes.”

The boy watches her for a long moment before he disappears. Hana feels a brush against her mind and freezes, lets the brothers curl against her and mesh with her spirit. Her vision whites out for a moment and she sees a teenage girl, green eyes peering at her curiously from behind light pink hair. The brothers give a rough bark and she’s back, staring at the wall.

 ** _Girl next door,_** the brothers say as one. **_Psychic_**.

Hana hums softly. “A very strong one, at that,” she says, and lets her in, trusting the brothers to chase her out if it gets too dangerous. The girl, Sakura, she suddenly knows, sifts through her recent memories. Hana feels embarrassment tinge her cheeks – her recent moments haven’t been the most respectable – but Sakura offers no judgement. Hana gets the sense she’s trying to communicate with her, but can’t turn her thoughts into words. “Take it easy,” she says, recalling how Karin’s abilities went haywire when she was thrust into a nightmare situation. “Hold to your anchor. We’ll figure something out.” Gratitude that isn’t her own rushes over her, and then she’s alone in her body, only the brothers at the fringe of her being.

The ground rumbles beneath her. Hana whirls around, closing her eyes and sensing a group of living people hone in on a room even further from her. “Do they know what I can do?” she asks the brothers. “What any of us can do?”

The brothers exchange a glance. **_Not sure_** , one of them says. **_They took you while the strong one was distracted._**

Hana suppresses a groan. “They took me by _association_. Fantastic.” Now if only they’d come closer so she could take advantage of it.

 

* * *

 

It’s sunset when any of the ghosts in the building approach her. She only knows because the ghost of an elderly woman who tries to feed her dead apples came across her and told her so. She tosses the apple in her hand as three ghosts phase through the walls, prompting the elderly woman to flee.

She doesn’t blame her. One of the ghosts is missing a head.

“Why are you still here?” the tall one asks, flicking long black hair over his shoulder. “You could bust out.”

“Don’t be rude!” the headless one seems to say, somehow. Hana stopped being surprised long ago. “Sorry about him, he’s grumpy he was killed.”

They dissolve into arguing and Hana waits it out. The girl tires of it and slaps them both in the arm. “Shut up! If we’re going to help then we better fucking help.” Crossing her arms and blowing red hair out of her face, she faces Hana with a glare. “Are you gonna try freeing them?”

Hana takes a breath and senses the ghosts have died recently, perhaps within the past week. “Yes, of course. I can’t do it alone without bringing the building down though.”

The girl nods sharply, satisfied. “Name’s Tayuya. Was, anyway. The blabbermouth is Kidōmaru and the headless idiot is Jirōbō. How can we help?”

“Preferably with passing on!” Jirōbō adds. “I didn’t get to keep my head. It’s in a corner, somewhere. Can’t find it for the life of me.” He pauses, waiting for a reaction, and totally misses Tayuya rolling his eyes. “Oh come on, that was funny!”

“Can you scare anyone down here? I just have to get close enough to someone to possess them,” Hana says.

Kidōmaru taps his chin thoughtfully. “Sure can. They’re all armed, though. Maybe wait til they bring food and water? Usually every second day.”

“If powers stayed after death I’d blow them all up,” Tayuya fumes. “Kill them for me.”

Hana hesitates, Minato’s certainty that humans can be talked around running through her mind. But he isn’t here, and these humans have already killed several of them. She nods. “I’ll call for retribution.”

Tayuya’s smile is absolutely bloodthirsty. “Excellent.”

“Some of the people on this floor could hold up in a fight,” Kidōmaru muses. “Girl at the end breathes fire, guy next door turns into metal. There’s a woman a couple doors down who’s been here for months, I’ve heard, and won’t die.”

“Who are you talking to?”

Hana almost jumps and turns to see the boy’s head leaning out of the wall again, watching her warily. “Ghosts,” she answers. “I’m Hana,” she adds.

The boy doesn’t answer for a long moment, looking between her and where he must think the ghosts are. “Sasuke,” he finally says. “Any chance you’ve got a plan? Sakura says you’re getting to one.”

“Gonna scare the shit out of the guards and possess one, then take care of them,” she says, picking her words carefully.

Sasuke’s eyes darken as he registers the implication. “I’d help, but I can’t go far from her. Will it work?”

Hana gestures for one of the ghosts to come forward. They bicker between themselves for a moment before Jirōbō steps forward. Hana touches his fingers and feeds him a little energy, just enough to become visible. He immediately staggers towards Sasuke, leaning forwards to expose his butchered neck.

Sasuke goes three shades paler and disappears.

“Can you control the visibility?” she asks, and is pleasantly surprised to see Jirōbō flicker between corporeal and invisible. “Perfect.”

“Do mutants make strong ghosts or something?” Tayuya asks, reaching out to accept some of Hana’s power.

“Something like that,” Hana replies. She gives some to Kidōmaru and watches them disappear.

One of the dogs leave the room, and the remaining one offers her some of his energy. Hana refuses with a fond smile. “I may need you yet.”

It’s a long wait before the two dogs return. The brother who’d been gone the longest walks up to her for a pet, looking immensely pleased with himself. **_Free the one who is not mortal_** , he says. **_She will help._**

Hana blinks with surprise. “She could see you?”

The Haimaru brothers watch her with muted golden eyes that have made her wonder more than once if they share a consciousness. **_Yes_** , is all that they say.

“Please guide me to her, then, when it’s time,” she says as she lies down and closes her eyes.

 

* * *

 

The Haimaru brothers’ ears have been twitching constantly for what must have been ten minutes and Hana is deeply suspicious the three ghosts are scaring more of the hate group than strictly necessary.

She can hear screaming when one of the humans comes to her floor, counts three people and sets her sight on the one in the back. Focusing on the energy within her spirit, she converts her body into spiritual essence and thrusts herself forward and through the walls, heading straight to her chosen victim. She slams into his body and takes control of it at once, not even allowing it the time to flinch.

She watches them stalk a couple steps ahead of her and quietly pats down the body for weapons. She dismisses the gun as too noisy, and keeps her face impassive as her gloved fingers land on the hilt of a knife.

Tayuya drifts through a wall and grabs the man at the front by the shoulders. The man in between them screams and fumbles for his gun; Hana grabs the knife and stabs him in the throat, cutting the scream into stunned gurgles. She yanks the knife out with a spray of blood and shoves him to the side, stepping two paces forward to stab the other man in the throat. He drops to the floor and Tayuya gives a satisfied hum. “Want us to keep them away from this floor?” she asks.

“If you wouldn’t mind,” Hana says, removing the gun holster and the knife’s sheath. She places the knife on the floor and exits the body, forcing her essence into body and spirit once more. The air fills with another gurgle and she turns to see Tayuya forcing the knife into his chest, her hand planted firmly over his mouth.

“You’re giving them too kind a death,” she says bitterly. She yanks the knife out and stabs him again, uncaring as her hand slides from the hilt to the blade.

“I’m short on time,” Hana says, picking up the gun and blade holsters while waiting for the Haimaru brothers to mark which doors to open. “I don’t want to draw attention yet.”

The brothers centre on one door and Hana borrows a hint of their strength to bust the door open. A woman sits inside, not flinching even as the door bangs against the wall. Hana takes in short blue hair and a labret piercing before she stands gracefully. Something strikes her as off about the woman, and she can’t put her finger on it until the woman walks to her: her hair is a little mussed and her clothes weathered, but her skin is untouched and her eyes clear as day.

“I wondered what I was waiting for,” the woman says, amber eyes rich with knowledge that can only come with time. They could make Hana feel small and young, if she let them.

“The Haimaru brothers said I should free you first,” she says, testing their story. The woman’s gaze flickers to the dogs and she inclines her head to them.

“I will help you, young necromancer,” she says, her smile beautiful but her eyes guarded. “My name is Konan.”

“Hana,” she says, stubbornly forcing down the blush that threatened to fill her cheeks because this was not the time, damn it! “And I’m not a necromancer, I just see ghosts.” One of the brothers gives a sharp bark. “And can possess, if someone’s close enough. And summon to a degree, probably, but I haven’t really tried it.” She’s babbling, she realises. She shuts her mouth.

Konan tilts her head and reaches out slowly, giving Hana plenty of time to move away if she wanted to. She brushes Hana’s fringe out of her face, her fingers soft and delicate. Far too soft to have been imprisoned for as long as her clothes suggest. “I am immortal, as the brothers have told you,” she says, and Hana almost jolts because nobody would call them that unless they could hear the brothers speak. Which means for the first time in her life, she’s met someone who can see ghosts without her lending them energy to be seen.

“Why are you still here then?” she asks, ignoring Tayuya muttering about her wasting time.

“I couldn’t just leave the children,” Konan replies, gaze becoming heavy with sorrow. “I was waiting for an opportunity to save as many as possible. Alone, they would be slaughtered before I could clear one floor.”

Hana winces and hopes dearly that the humans haven’t realised the ghosts have had a mutant influence. “Is the two of us enough though?”

Konan’s eyes glitter with something Hana can’t decipher. “I also have a sort of… intuition,” she says, and takes a step to the side that releases a little of the tension between them. “I get a feeling that I should be somewhere, or stay somewhere, until something happens. I won’t know it until it happens.” Her eyelids lower and she accepts the knife Tayuya hands her. “You are that something, Hana,” she says.

“I hate to interrupt,” Tayuya says dryly, “but we’ve gotta get moving. You’re gonna need more than you two but honestly, you’re pretty much the oldest ones here. Most of us are kids.”

“I’m sorry I couldn’t save you,” Konan says, voice gentle with a hint of self-loathing Hana usually only hears from Kakashi after a few beers.

“If I had to die so most of us live, I can deal with that,” Tayuya says flatly. Her eyes flit to Hana. “Let us take revenge, so that we may pass. All of us.”

Hana takes a deep breath and nods. “I’ve never done it to this scale, so bear with me,” she says, closing her eyes. The Haimaru brothers press against her legs, lending her their strength as she expands her senses to envelop the building. She calls upon the power dormant within her, black and cool beneath her spirit. It releases a few tendrils within her, reads her intentions and bursts forth until it breaks free of her body. She guides it with a thought and ghosts stir, hearing her cry – for justice, for revenge, for freedom, for _retribution_.

The ghosts rally with universal outrage, feeding upon her energy and clamouring for a chance at vengeance. Tayuya screams, greedily absorbing the power she needs, and flies through the hall and out the door. The whirlwind of power threatens to overcome her, pulling at the strands of spirit that hold her together and trying to tear her apart.

Warm hands press against her cheeks and Hana gasps, setting her awareness to hyper focus on those two points of contact. The black power splits in half; the strands bound to the furious ghosts flee her for their hosts, and the remaining mass settles deep beneath her spirit again. Hana takes a few deep breaths, her knees trembling with exertion.

When she opens her eyes, Konan is watching her with something close to awe. She gives a small smile and releases her cheeks, her eyes darting to them immediately with surprise. “What?” Hana asks, touching a hand to one cheek. It pulses with warmth beneath her fingertips, a stark contrast to the skin surrounding it.

“You have the mark of a necromancer,” Konan says, hesitating for a moment before she reaches out to trace a shape on her cheek. “Two of them, actually. Long triangles, like fangs.” Her fingers fall away and Hana has the irrational desire to bring them back. “They’re red,” she adds, eyes going distant for a second.

“I stood out enough before,” Hana grumbles, distant screaming reminding her of their task. “What’s the go – we both free them, one does and the other on guard?”

“Both, for now,” Konan says, punching her hand through a handle. She withdraws it unharmed and shoulders the door open.

The Haimaru brothers bark as one and Hana probes her power reserves, surprised to find them already beginning to recover. She feeds them enough for them to transform into wolves big enough to fill the hallway. They split up, one near her, one at the door and one heading further away to tear into the humans approaching.

Hana makes quick work of the farthest door and a girl bursts out, already cracking her knuckles. “Finally,” she says, giving a huff of frustration that turns into flame. “Let me at them!”

“Please stay close! We’re safer in numbers,” Hana calls, bursting into the next door.

By the fourth door she realises they are mostly children. The fire-breather would be in her late teens, but the little boy who clings to her leg can’t be more than six. She absently runs a hand through his hair as she breaks open the next door, and she’s not surprised to see Sasuke standing protectively over Sakura.

“Come on guys, time to go,” Hana says sharply. Sasuke nods and bends to let Sakura clamber onto his back, stepping behind her confidently. Sakura gives a low moan as the children start talking and an explosion sounds in the distance but doesn’t rattle the walls, so Hana judges they still have more time.

They clear the floor and pile into the hallway to cover the other side. Fire fills the air as mutants show their fury, speedsters carrying heavy-hitters to free more children as the others cover them.

Hana doesn’t stop moving, keeping the children close as she guides ghosts to humans and warns them off mutants. She doesn’t need her weapons until they break to the non-holding rooms, full of humans with no mutants in sight. A solid metal boy takes the young one from her leg so she can leap into the fight, trusting the brothers to shield the kids from the brutal sight.

By the time it’s over she’s sweaty, covered in blood that’s not just hers and desperate for a clean bed.

She catches Konan’s gaze, takes in the other woman breathing hard but unharmed, and gives her a feral grin. Konan’s eyes widen for a moment before her lips curve into a smirk.

“That was almost worth dying for,” Jirōbō says, prompting a young boy to scream at the sight of him. Hana does a double take to see him cradling his head in one arm. “Almost.”

The building still reeks of bloodlust but Hana can’t sense any living beings other than those in her sight. She takes a stabilising breath. “You’ve had your retribution. You may pass at your leisure, and may your way be safe,” she says, her words ringing with power. Jirōbō bows to her as he fades out. She watches as many of the other ghosts sigh with relief, rising through the ceiling as they disappear.

“Don’t leave me,” Hana hears, and turns to see a boy with two heads clinging to Tayuya. “We don’t want to be alone!”

Tayuya looks to her helplessly and Hana feels her heart pang with sorrow. “I can help you stay for a while longer, but not forever,” she says.

Tayuya nods slowly and runs bloodstained fingers through the boys’ hair.

“There are reinforcements coming,” Konan says, suddenly beside her. “I feel it. We should leave.”

“Where are we going to go?” the girl who breathes fire asks.

“Dunno about you, Karui, but I’ve got nowhere to go. I’ll end up on the streets. And then here! Again!” A boy gives a low whine and leans into her, dark skin gone grey with horror.

“Don’t be so negative, Omoi. They’ll help us. Right?” Karui asks, looking straight at Hana and Konan.

Minato is not going to be impressed with at least fifty extra mutants. But then, he’d be less impressed to hear she’d abandoned them all. “Follow me,” Hana says.

 

* * *

 

Sneaking such a large group out of an old building and through a rougher part of the city is not the most difficult thing Hana’s ever done, but it’s certainly not the easiest. The older and slightly more intimidating kids form a perimeter around the younger ones, glaring at anyone who stares at them too long. One of them tries to render them all invisible, but the effect only lasts five minutes before she passes out and has to be carried.

Konan bans power use after that.

In the end, Hana decides they need backup. She whistles softly and smiles when the Haimaru brothers, busy tailing the youngest and giving them soft nudges while they still carry some of her power, turn as one to meet her gaze. “Would you be able to get me a mobile phone? Preferably of someone old.”

The brothers exchange a glance and one makes his way to her, pressing his nose into her waiting palm to return her power. Rendered invisible to the rest of the world, he ducks through the walls of the nearest house. Hana only has to wait a few minutes before he returns, a flip phone delicately secured between his teeth.

“Thank you,” she smiles again and her shoulders drop with relief to see the phone isn’t locked.

“Robbing the elderly?” Konan’s smooth voice asks from behind her. “I should be offended.”

“Oh?” Hana raises her eyebrows at her as she enters Minato’s number. “Are you too old to use technology too?”

“Okay, not that old,” Konan concedes, stepping forward to match her pace.

“Most elderly don’t lock their phone,” Hana elaborates after a moment of comfortable silence. “And at least it’s cheap. Besides, the kids come first,” she says over the ringing.

Minato picks up after a few rings. “Hello?”

“It’s Hana,” she says, frowning as a ghost rises through the pavement to leer at them. “I was kidnapped and I’ve left with about fifty kids. Can you come get us?”

“Fuck,” Minato swears, and usually Hana would make fun of him for it but she’s too drained to bother. “Where are you? I’ll get Tenzō to come find you.”

Hana reads off a few street signs and eventually Minato gets a hit. She keeps him on the phone until it runs out of the little credit it had, then sighs. “I’m beat.”

“One step in front of the other,” Konan says, her hand lifting to her shoulder but dropping halfway after a beat of hesitation. Hana eyes her curiously but Konan shakes her head. “Don’t ask, it’ll sound weird.”

Hana casts a meaningful glance to the two visible Haimaru brothers, now carrying a few six-year-olds between them. “Weirder than ghosts. Weirder than summoning really, really mad ghosts. Just wait til you summon a demon.”

“You will,” Konan says, and she mustn’t have meant to because her face freezes with shock. “I mean – maybe you can. Who knows.”

“Just tell her,” a soft voice says in front of them. Hana looks forward to see Sakura looking over her shoulder, eyes drooping sleepily while Sasuke wordlessly carries her. She stares straight at Konan. “She’ll handle it.”

Hana stifles a yawn and perks up when she detects a group of people too fast to be human approaching them. “What?”

Konan is silent for a long moment, fiddling with her fingers. “The power I mentioned before, the one that gives me feelings to stay somewhere. Sometimes it gives me perception of the future.”

Hana waits for clarification, but it doesn’t come. “And?”

“Well,” Konan bites her lip, the show of uncertainty taking Hana by surprise. “I don’t want to sound too forward.”

Sasuke gives an irritated grunt. “She sees your future and you end up together. Sometimes reality and the future intermingle and it gets confusing. Sakura told me while we were waiting for you guys to do something.”

Sakura looks tired enough to fall asleep but still manages to make Sasuke wince from the pinch she punishes his arm with. “You weren’t supposed to say anything!”

“They’re annoying!” Sasuke protests, “and it’s distracting! The sooner they get it, the better!”

Hana looks to Konan with wide eyes, her heart skipping a beat as she takes in the light flush to Konan’s cheeks. “Is that true?”

“Kind of,” Konan says, not meeting her gaze. “I do get feelings like that. I’m sorry if it makes you uncomfortable.”

Hana thinks through the events of the past day and shakes her head. “It’s fine. We have a clairvoyant at home too. Just… can we take what ever happens day by day? I’d like to be friends, if that’s okay with you.”

Konan finally lifts her gaze from the pavement and offers a small but genuine smile. “I’d like that.”

They turn a corner and Hana sags with relief to see Tenzō waiting for them, three buses waiting on the side of the road. Gai waves cheerfully. “I carried them here!” he yells as greeting.

Hana isn’t sure how he could do that, super strength or not, until she spots a very guilty looking Tsunade being held by the wrist by Kakashi. “These are my friends,” she says to the children looking back to her, distrust obvious in their faces. “You can trust them.”

“We must board quickly!” Gai says, quickly toning down his voice when the closest teenager shrinks away from him. “This isn’t the most friendly place. We will drive back!”

“Thank god,” Hana mutters to Konan as they usher the kids onto the first bus. “Super speed gives me bad nausea.”

“Not much will kill me,” Konan replies, “but that sounds terrible.”

A couple of people have stepped out of their houses to stare at them. Kakashi vibrates in place, clearly wanting to grab them all and dash, but restrains himself until everyone is boarded. Hana takes the last bus and barely has her seatbelt on before Tenzō speeds them away.

Her eyes close against her will. She stubbornly stares ahead, running her priorities through her head – she needs to speak with Tsunade, sort out what will happen to the kids, figure out who the hate group was, report to Minato, figure out how long Tayuya will stay for before she has to pass on-

“You’re thinking too loud,” Konan says, poking her in the temple. Hana blinks blearily at her, the adrenaline fizzling away and leaving her washed out. She can’t remember the last time she ate. Konan sighs, but it doesn’t sound irritated at all. “Tell me if this is uncomfortable,” she says before slinging an arm over Hana’s shoulders and bringing her to lean against her. “Sleep. Everything will be here when you wake up.”

Hana wants to protest but her eyelids are entirely onboard with the idea. “Not uncomfortable,” she manages to say.

“I’ll keep an eye on things,” Konan says, a quiet authority in her voice that doesn’t raise Hana’s hackles. Kiba would call her alpha bitch, and the thought makes her lips twitch. “Rest.”

She does.

**Author's Note:**

> I love hearing from you! Let me know what you think :) I'll probably do a follow up to this following Sasuke and Sakura (and Naruto) because I can't help myself.


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